Immortals After Dark 03 - No Rest for the Wicked

bellowed.
    She leaned to the side again. “No competition. She’ll take it away.”
    “She would no’ do that. No’ over the death of a vampire.”
    Kaderin nodded, and strangely, Bowen’s eyes went even more wide and wild, turning to the ice-blue color of his beastly form. He released Sebastian, his flattened palms shooting up. He seemed to curse himself in Gaelic.
    A Lykae eager to end a fight before a kill? And while a vampire still had his throat clutched in a death grip? This was indeed a week of firsts.
    “Let him go, Sebastian,” Kaderin said. “You must.”
    “Finish this,” Sebastian demanded of Bowen, biting out the words.
    Bowen just wiped his face on his sleeve. “I will no’. No’ now.” As soon as Sebastian released him, he backed away, hands still raised.
    She couldn’t imagine that Bowen had ever backed down from a fight before. He was a proud alpha male, and he’d been trained from childhood to kill vampires. How much he must want this prize.
    Bowen dropped back into the shadows, eyes glowing.
    When Sebastian moved to follow him, she said, “No, you have to let him go.”
    Sebastian turned to her, and she had to stifle a wince at finding that he was insufferably sexy fresh from the fight. His muscled chest heaved with exertion and was marked with bravely earned injury.
    Too bad he won’t scar, she thought, sheathing her sword.
    “You desire me to let him go?” With a brief glance down at his ghastly injuries, he said calmly, “I tend to punish slights like these.” Such an understatement rumbled in his deep voice.
    He’d held his own against Bowen. And had been ready for more.
    Warrior. Immortal. I’ve never made love to an immortal.
    Sebastian’s gaze kept flickering over her, as though still starved for the sight of her. Without warning, he grasped her arm and traced her to the darkened balcony once more.
    “Don’t ever put yourself in danger like that again,” he said to her.
    She looked into his eyes, and the floor seemed to wobble. “Y-you traced me?” Dizziness. Her first trace. Trippy. “That wasn’t very considerate.”
    “I should have warned you, Katja.”
    In another instant, the entire world seemed to go off-kilter—sights and sounds and even the beat of her heart were different...
    Oh, gods, Kaderin was feeling again—and there was no denying it now.
    She swayed slightly, but he still held her arm. Sc-sc-screwed.
    As though she’d been scoured clean with icy water, the blessing was... gone. Utterly.
    She released a pent-up breath, accepting what she instinctively knew was true: it was Sebastian who brought out her feelings. There was no capricious power toying with her, no new spell. It was simply... him.
    And she wanted to scream to the sky in frustration, because she didn’t understand why.
    The Valkyrie didn’t believe in chance, in randomness. So what could it possibly mean when the pull of a vampire could ignite emotions, that had been stamped out so completely, and for so long?
    As she gazed up at Sebastian, she experienced her newest emotion. Dread.

10
    K aderin had that bomb blast look again, and he wondered if tracing had done that to her. He mentally kicked himself for not anticipating this.
    Out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian spied beings easing up the stairs to eavesdrop on them. He stepped in front of her and bared his fangs at them. They scattered.
    When he turned back, she seemed to be growing less distressed.
    “Kaderin, never get in the middle of a fight as you did. I had that under control.”
    “Did you, then?” she asked in an inscrutable tone. “He’s a Lykae who had not yet unleashed the beast inside him.” When his brows drew together, she said, “A Lykae, a werewolf?”
    “Then what would happen? He’d become a forest wolf?”
    She eyed his hand until he released her. “You wouldn’t be that fortunate.” Then, speaking absently as though recalling a memory, she murmured, “The Lykae call it ‘letting the beast out of its cage.’ He would have grown a foot taller, and his claws and fangs would have shot longer and grown razor-sharp. Wavering over him like a phantom masking his body would be the image of a brutal, towering animal.” She finally glanced up. “And if you refused to trace, his beast would have been your last sight before your head was sliced from your body.”
    “That would remain to be seen.” He narrowed his eyes. “What did you mean about a competition?”
    “You don’t know?” At